Media

Nuts!

Penny Lane's film NUTS! The Story of the Goat Testicle Impotence Cure & More premiered at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival.

The mostly true story of Dr. John Romulus Brinkley, an eccentric genius who built an empire with his goat-testicle impotence cure and a million-watt radio station. Animated reenactments, interviews, archival footage, and one seriously unreliable narrator trace his rise from poverty to celebrity and influence in 1920s America.

Penny Lane has been making award-winning documentaries, video art, and essay films since 2002. Our Nixon is her first feature-length documentary, which world premiered at Rotterdam, had its North American premiere at SXSW, won the Ken Burns Award for "Best of the Festival" at Ann Arbor, and was selected as the Closing Night Film at New Directors/New Films. Our Nixon is being released by Cinedigm and CNN Films.

She is a Creative Capital grantee and was named one of Filmmaker Magazine’s “25 New Faces of Independent Film” in 2012. Her films have screened at Rotterdam, AFI FEST, Hot Docs, Full Frame, Rooftop Films, MoMA's Documentary Fortnight, and many other venues. Lane has been awarded grants from Cinereach, TFI Documentary Fund, LEF Foundation, NYSCA, Experimental Television Center, IFP, and the Puffin Foundation.

Her 2005 documentary The Abortion Diaries has become an important organizing and educational tool across the nation. The Abortion Diaries has screened in 42 states and worldwide at over 350 different community venues, ranging from bars to art centers to clinics to colleges, and also on Yes! Television and Free Speech TV.

Her writings and interviews have been published in INCITE! Journal of Experimental Media & Radical Aesthetics, Filmmaker Magazine, The Brooklyn Rail, and On The Issues. From 2010 to 2011, she programmed the monthly Flaherty NYC series at Anthology Film Archives, showcasing risk-taking nonfiction films. Prior to coming to Colgate, she taught video and new media arts at Hampshire, Williams, and Bard colleges.

And yes, Penny Lane is her real name.

Degree

MFA, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 2005; BA, Vassar College, 2001

Distinctions

2013

“Best Documentary,” Seattle International Film Festival

Adrienne Shelly Award for Excellence in Filmmaking, Nantucket Film Festival